Life on the Bayou
by ficdirectory
Summary: Reid plays a part, and saves the day.


No one in the BAU knew this, but one of Reid's favorite things to do was to stop by JJ's house and play with Henry. He wasn't very good at watching Henry in the classic sense, making sure he didn't get hurt, and things like that. But he did like to observe Henry, and sometimes, join in the play.

The thing was, Reid never really had a childhood. Not that he wasn't happy. He was. Kind of. It was just that he never really knew what it was like to do something for the fun of it. He had magic, but even that took a level of skill and practice and wit. There was something meditative about watching Henry zoom cars around on the floor, make up names for his Lego people on the spot, and imagine they were in a swamp packed with alligators.

Reid suspected a lot of Henry's imagination was from JJ. She was always right on the floor with him. Always asking him what the cars were doing, why he chose that name for the Lego person and what way Henry could think of to avoid the alligators swimming just beyond the couch.

"Spencer, help! Alligators gonna get me!" Henry called, real fear in his voice.

He looked at JJ, at a loss, and then at Henry, who was so into his fantasy that he trembled.

JJ nodded at him, expectantly.

Cautiously, Spencer took a step forward.

"No!" Henry screamed, making Spencer jump.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Alligator's gonna bite you! Yes, Mama? Yes?" Henry asked, looking to JJ for confirmation.

"The carpet is a Louisiana bayou. Big alligators live there and they'll eat you if you're not careful. You don't just wanna walk in the middle of them, do you?" she asked, softly.

Reid cocked his head and squinted.

"If this was a crime scene!" she exclaimed getting excited. "You wouldn't just walk in without protection, would you?"

"No, of course not! But JJ, it's not-"

"Yes. It _is_," JJ insisted, sounding one-hundred percent serious. Her eyes had gotten wide.

"Oh no! He make a motor-sound! He gonna bite me!" Henry shrieked. "Help me, Spencer!"

"Actually an alligator could eat someone your size in one bite. He'd take a little longer on me. Maybe dragging me in the water to drown, or letting my carcass rot, or biting me and then performing what's called the death-roll until bite-sized chunks of me are torn off and easier to digest."

Henry stared with huge, terrified eyes.

"Spencer," JJ warned lowly. "Tell him you're kidding."

"I'm actually not kidding. But the muscles to open an alligator's mouth are really weak, and the probability of an alligator attacking you here is extremely unlikely...especially in your living room..." Reid trailed off, trying to smooth things over.

"Hurry, Spencer! You're the only one who can save Henry! Now how are you gonna do it?" JJ asked, ignoring his explanation.

Reid scanned the living room desperately, remembering JJ's earlier words about walking into an active crime scene unprotected.

"Protection," he whispered. "Protection, protection, protection... Okay! I got it!" he exclaimed, crouching on a chair and dropping throw pillows on the carpet. "This is my bridge made of reinforced steel, okay? And I've got an alligator-proof force field around me, okay?" he called to Henry.

"Okay?" he whispered, checking with JJ.

She nodded.

Spencer made quick work, stepping carefully just on the pillows and then arriving to the couch little Henry clung to.

Making a mechanical noise, Spencer mimed opening his force field and allowing Henry inside. "Here, climb on my back. I'll swim us to safety," Spencer told him seriously.

Henry held on uncomfortably tight and Spencer tried not to choke. He stepped over the bridge and deposited Henry with JJ, who was holding old cardboard tubing.

"Look what I found..." she told Henry furtively. "It's a disappearing wand, just for alligators. Oh, no... Too bad we don't know anyone who knows how to use one of these..."

"Yes. We do!" Henry exclaimed. "Spencer, make them alligators dis-pear!"

Without hesitation, Spencer took the wand, and pointed it at the bayou teeming with large reptiles.

"Water, blue and carpet, green!  
Make these alligators now unseen!"

"An' say Abracadabra," Henry whispered.

"Abracadabra!" Reid finished with a flourish.

And just like that, all the danger disappeared.


End file.
